


Head Above Water

by nonphenomenaut



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Bookstore AU, Flint is a super grump, M/M, Silver is a grump, black sails au, bookstore cats, just trying something small, porn on the horizon, pure wish fulfillment, two grumps get together and get happy, yay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 09:56:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12455010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonphenomenaut/pseuds/nonphenomenaut
Summary: The accident may have changed him, but it's the aftermath that will haunt him.





	Head Above Water

"John? John Silver!"

The call comes from the street and he doesn't have to look back to know that the hatchback is coming to a full stop, wether he wants it to or not. Its shocks groan under what he suspects must be its most recent haul.

Fuck. 

John quickly turns and heads back in the opposite direction. Bowing his head as though he might lose her, he cleaves his way through the morning crowd and curses his foolishness at the very idea that he could even come within two blocks of the damn place and not be found out nigh on immediately. 

His limp gets more pronounced the faster he tries to go as he hasn't quite gotten used to the fit and the swing at high speeds. So the uneven gallop he's attempting makes the tips of his ears burn hot in embarrassment and he hates himself all the more for it.

It's been a year since the accident. Which has been enough time for his incisions to heal and the nightmares to have abated, but the feeling of being a whole man, of being who he used to be, is starting to look less and less likely to happen as time rolls forward.

At the very least, he assumed that enough time would have passed for him to walk incognito along the sidewalk, especially with his beard and hair grown out as long as they were, but he should have goddamn known; if Eleanor Guthrie was on the lookout for you, you got found. 

Or, ironically, he supposes that the universe continually has it out for him and there just happened to be an estate sale somewhere in the area. 

A car door opens and closes and that voice he knows all too well calls out a above the din. "I fucking know you heard me John. Please stop."

But, resolving to hang onto to his stubbornness for as long as possible, he waits for the catch of a small strong hand on his arm to get him to relent. Furiously aware of how easy it is for her to overtake him. 

He stops and sighs. Still very good at pretending he still has pride.

Reluctantly, John turns and takes a little bit of pleasure in the fact that Eleanor's pretty face collapses and withers like bad fruit to look at him. He must look awful. 

"Fuck John. You look fucking awful." She says bluntly. She looks half tempted to find him the closest chair and push him into it.

But he will be a cold corpse in the ground before he ever accepts anyone's pity and he pulls his arm loose from her grasp.

"Good morning Eleanor. Fancy meeting you here." He grinds out through a fake smile, taking back the only control he feels he has. "I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by and see if you wanted to have a nice little cha-"

"It's five fucking thirty in the fucking morning and what's this shit I hear about you fucking living in your '77 Cutlass ever since fucking February!" She interrupts, not seeming to notice the wider berth the sleepy crowd is giving them. It is frankly a miracle that he's given her the slip for this long, he supposes. "You fucking idiot. If you were drowning in medical bills why didn't you come to me, hm?"

Like that was ever going to fucking happen, he thinks. But doesn't say.

"Nothing to worry about. It's all been taken care of."

"You sold your fucking house!" She goes on. Like he doesn't already know.

"Yes. And now I'm no longer 'drowning in medical bills'. So, as I said, it's been taken care of." He replies somewhat nastily, barely able to keep a handle on it. The lack of food since yesterday is making him snappish and his leg sends a perfectly timed complaint to him for trying to sleep at an odd angle last night in the backseat.

He twinges and shifts and she sees.

She looks like she's about to rail at him again when much to his surprise, her shoulders suddenly drop and a long sigh comes out of her that sounds like it started in her toes, her head shaking a bit. 

He imagines his predicament must seem pretty pathetic right now.

"Will you just," she starts, hesitates, then continues on steadfastly, "as a friend, I'm asking you." She looks back up. Imploring him with soft blue eyes. "Will you just come with me? I need your help." 

***

"Can you grab the stuff in the back?" She asks as they pull into her designated parking spot and she shuts off the engine. After a moment, he decides that he's in no position to decline. He did get into the car after all.

Just as he had suspected, when he uses his fist in the special move he knows to get the trunk to pop open, it's crammed nearly to the roof with leatherbound, gilt-edged tomes. 

They're homogeneous enough to be a single person's collection, John knows, and he also knows that no matter how impressive or expensive they were to collect; Eleanor either got them all for free or at least at a steep steep discount. That was just her gift.

"Who'd you kill to get your hands on these?" He asks mock-jokingly as she ducks into the backseat and comes out with a couple of flattened cardboard boxes. 

She gives him a coy smile across the top of the car as she presses the flat things into more useful shapes. "Funny you should say that. Turns out that that piece of metal in Old Man Teach's chest finally found its mark and his widow said I could have first claim to anything in his library."

For the first time in a long time John smiles. "So it's true she hated him just as much as he hated you. He's probably rolling in his grave right now seeing this."

"Hopefully." Eleanor shrugs smugly and helps him fill the boxes.

Nassau Bookstore & Cafe is a small blue brick building in the middle of a shiny, glass-windowed down town. Owned by the Guthrie family for two generations now, it has become a most beloved hangout for the locals and a unique memory to take back home for the occasional out of towner.

It boasts made-from-scratch food served three times daily to go along with its 'book de jour' and the only catch is that all the meal choices are made by Eleanor herself and whatever she decides to cook that day is what you're going to be eat. No exceptions.

It's because of this that her store is kept open every single day.

The bell at the top of the door jangles loudly as they both step inside and John is awash with a sense of coming home that he has no right to feel.

He had been one of her most dutiful patrons, back in the day. And the shop still smells exactly the same as it did all that time ago.

He winds his way through the empty tables and slides his heavy box onto the exact same counter he remembers; long with a gold-flecked formica top and a base made entirely of stacked hardback books. 

He takes a moment to look around, impressed by how little the place has changed since his absence. The booths are still the same, the chairs, how she still insists on using cloth napkins instead of paper. Even the menu board above the half-walled back kitchen looks exactly the same as it ever had. 'Kitchen Sink Omelette' it reads for this morning in her familiar curl of handwriting and the book choice taking just as much occupancy: Moby Dick by Herman Melville. 

Multiple well-loved copies are already lined up in the central rack ready to be devoured right next to the small set of laws Eleanor has had in place since the very first day she'd taken over Nassau B&C:

1\. NO SMOKING  
2\. NO LOUD TALKING  
& 3\. NO DIRTYING UP THE BOOKS

'Any and all persons found in violation of these offenses,' it says in small but clear print below these laws, 'will kindly be obliged to get the fuck out.'

John seats himself at the counter and surreptitiously stretches out his leg, trying to let his breath out as quietly as possible, ever aware that she's watching him even when she's looking nowhere near him.

"How's business?" He asks, even though he already knows. He asks because having the conversation steer anywhere close to being about him is not something he's prepared to deal with yet. Maybe not for a long while.

"Steady." She says because she knows he already knows, and she starts cracking eggs into her huge cast iron pan like there isn't a whole unaccounted for year yawning between them.

"And Max?" He pulls out a book and thumbs its soft pages, just to give himself something to do. Just to establish the delicate ground they're both going to be walking on for the present. His stomach gives a ravenous twist at the mere sizzle of cooking bacon.

"She's her."

And for one fleeting moment, John lets himself believe that it could really be this easy. He could just slip right back into it. Resume the life he had had before, pretend like nothing's changed. 

And he's tired enough to let himself try it, if only for a little bit, to make himself really feel that this is something he can do again.


End file.
